Slashdot Mirror
In Calif. Study, Most Kids With Whooping Cough Were Fully Vaccinated
An anonymous reader writes with this extract from a Reuters article: "In early 2010, a spike in cases appeared at Kaiser Permanente in San Rafael, and it was soon determined to be an outbreak of whooping cough — the largest seen in California in more than 50 years. Witt had expected to see the illnesses center around unvaccinated kids, knowing they are more vulnerable to the disease. 'We started dissecting the data. What was very surprising was the majority of cases were in fully vaccinated children. That's what started catching our attention,' said Witt."
The tinfoil hat crowd is probably pleased by this. Now they can invite kids with whooping cough to their chicken pox parties.
Another study that provides a pharmaceutical company with more revenues!
So... either their was something wrong with the vaccine, there was a mutation, or else this particular vaccine is less effective than most other vaccines. Unfortunately, most people will take this and generalize it to "vaccines don't work!!!"
If the kids who weren't vaccinated acted as cultures to create a lot more whooping cough bacteria then that might allow more diversity which in turn may more easily create strains resistant to the normal vaccination.
Hm. Better not vaccinate my kid then, since he's more likely to get whooping cough if he's fully vaccinated.
I would love to have a Rain Man at my disposal. I would clean out Atlantic City and Vegas.
Also, it would be like having a walking encyclopedia at your disposal, better than an iPhone.
No way I'm letting that fucker drive though.
It's their fault (so will say the CA and US politicians/bureaucrats). "Truth is fluid. Truth is subjective. Truth is what the state tells you to believe. It is the preeminent truth of our time: You cannot fight the system."
BTW I am vaccinated, as are my kids. But I don't believe in forcing people to take shots, anymore than I believe in forcing them to buy insurance, or forcing them to attend church. I am Pro-choice in everything.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
...five times. Aside from having it when she was a child, during every one of her four pregnancies a test that suggested she still needed the vaccination and she was given it again.
Surely the fifth time was the charm.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Vaccines aren't perfect, and with pertussis it's important to get them vaccinated as soon as most of them can mount an effective response. So if enough kids are vaccinated, the odds that the ones who do come down with it are vaccinated becomes greater than that they're unvaccinated.
All in all a pretty basic exercise in high-school probability algebra.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
No, the vaccine worked. The reason most of the children who got infected also had the vaccines, was that 81% of all children had recieved the vaccine. The risk of getting the infection was still greater for the children who newer got the vaccine.
So the correct headline would be "Vaccine not as effective as previously thought".
Let's put it this way. When you have a vaccine that works 95% of the time, and 99% of the kids are vaccinated. You'll have ~5% of the population contracting the disease despite being vaccinated. And the 1% of the population will contract the disease because they weren't vaccinated. You end with way more students that are vaccinated with the disease than those who are not vaccinated (absolute number wise). But it also ignored the fact that 94% of the population was protected against the disease.
This actually makes perfect sense. Consider the following:
1. Most children -are- vaccinated.
2. Vaccinations do not really make you "immune" to catching a disease, they train your body to more efficiently fight it off.
So, what happens is that the small percentage on unvaccinated children are bringing Whooping Cough back into contact with the rest of us, and those vaccinated children who perhaps don't have their immune system running at full capacity (tired, stress, fighting other illnesses, etc) catch it. Since there are statistically so many more of the latter available, it makes perfect sense that there are more cases in vaccinated children than unvaccinated.
A more interesting statistic would be if every outbreak could be traced back to an unvaccinated "patient zero". I strongly suspect this is the case.
This is not necessarily unusual. Vaccines are not 100% effective. Having the vaccine administered to you is not a 100% guarantee of immunity!
We know this, and we've always known this. It's one of the very important reasons that you must vaccinate as many people as possible.
Vaccinations require a population-wide threshold to prevent the spread of disease. This group, along with those that cannot be vacinated (Weak immune systems, the very young) Count against that threshold. That is why it is critical that all that are able to be vaccinated be vaccinated. That is why anti-vac morons are dangerous to themselves and those around them.
The majority of cases were in vaccinated children BETWEEN THE AGES OF EIGHT AND TWELVE. The pertussis vaccine is given in a five-shot sequence at 2, 4, 6, and 18 months and between four and six years old, with a booster shot at 11 or 12. So kids whose last vaccination was within 2 years didn't get pertussis. For all we know, all the kids who got pertussis at age eight were among those who got the shot at age four, and those who got pertussis at age twelve hadn't received the booster shot yet, so the suggestion here is that the five-to-eight-year effectiveness assumed for the pre-booster vaccine is more like two-to-four years. Another interesting question would be whether these kids were all in a cohort who received their four-to-six shots after a particular change in the manufacturing process that might have limited the effectiveness of the vaccine.
But go ahead, make the assumption that the vaccine doesn't work!
The previous effectiveness was assumed to be 20 years, but it seems closer to 5-10. That is one reason that most colleges require proof of the 12 year booster (which is often given at age 18 since an incoming freshman needs it to start attending but most parents skip it in adolescence.)
I caught whooping cough when I was 25 because I had not had the booster since I was 12. I was also required to get a fresh TDaP at age 31 to start attending graduate school, again because the booster was assumed to wear off after 20 years.
Perhaps they need to change the booster recommendations from every 20 years to every 10 years.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
TFA says kids from 8 to 12 are getting pertussis due to the vaccine wearing off. But here's my question: What's the mortality rate from whooping cough in this age group?
The motivation to vaccinate older kids and adults has been to prevent them from infecting infants, where the vaccine is not effective or not recommended and for whom the mortality rates can be quite high. Once the kid is older, its just a nasty cough (assuming no complicating conditions). So, is a booster shot really worthwhile? Particularly for their own health? The down sides of such a vaccination could be less than for young children. I don't think autism kicks in at this late an age, whether from vaccines or whatever. Keep in mind that in a few years, these kids will be cutting their heroin with who knows what. A few traces of some preservatives are the least of their worries.
Have gnu, will travel.
It is known the shot wears off, it is know that a booster at 13 should be done, and again in adults.
There is no surprise here.
The headline should read:
"Study shows CDC correct. Booster should be given at 11, and not 13.'
""The longer you went from your last vaccine, the greater your risk of disease," Witt told Reuters Health."
Oh really? How is an infectious disease Doc not already aware of this? I'm am not a Dr, but I have spent 12 years reading vaccine studies and even I am aware of that fact.
I hope it's just a poor aticle, and this Dr. Wit just wasn't quoted in the correct context.
Based on every other article about science, that's probably the case.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Where do you think shingles came from before there was a CP vaccine? "Shingles" is the reactivation of the same freaking virus you had long ago -- because herpes is forever.
The vaccine, unlike the wild virus, does not take up residence in nerve roots and does not have the potential to cause shingles later. However, both the wild immunity and the vaccine immunity wane with age, so if you're not routinely exposed to the wild virus you need a booster to prevent shingles.
Which, thank you, I will be getting along with my pertussis booster in about two years. Both I and my (now adult) children have had the wild flavor of chicken pox, and I can do without another round with it. Unlike some, I can read the medical literature on this stuff. I even talk to my doctor, believe it or not.
Now, get off my lawn.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
We're here at Kaiser Permanente in San Rafael, where we've secretly replaced the fine vaccines they usually serve with Folgers Crystals. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference!
According to "herd immunity" theories, a good chunk of vaccines' effectiveness comes from the fact that the surrounding animals' immunity keeps the disease from gaining a foothold.
If an unvaccinated individual travels to a high risk area, there's a decent chance they can be infected and allow the disease to incubate enough to attack a segment of vaccinated individuals.
Unfortunately the Autism vaccine causes Whooping Cough. I read it in a scientician paper.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No vaccine is 100% effective, so some people who are vaccinated will catch the disease. Since the vast majority of people are vaccinated, it's no surprise that most of the victims were vaccinated.
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
Sadly, with fewer people getting vaccinated, there's more of a chance for pockets of disease to linger, and catch not only unvaccinated people but also those who didn't respond strongly to the vaccine.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
According to the article, only 8% of kids were unvaccinated. So even if they were ten times as likely to get the disease, most of the cases will still be vaccinated kids.
What TFA actually says is that vaccinated kids are LESS likely to get the disease, and kids with multiple booster shots are even less likely to get it. The article's conclusion is that the vaccines work, but they work even better with a booster. The misleading Slashdot headline and summary implies the opposite conclusion.
Evidence that a harmful vaccination is also ineffective against its sole purpose...
I can pretty much guarentee that this article will be erased
(just like the recent kids' visit to Mexico was erased from most of the media).
Just sayin'
I think TFA's headline was pretty accurate: Whooping cough vaccine fades in pre-teens.
The CDC is apparently now recommending whooping cough booster shots be given at age 11:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/recs-summary.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/default.htm#recs
Nothing (anti-vaccine) to see here. Move along.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Pointing out the inevitable consequences of not vaccinating isn't "bashing".
Not everyone can be vaccinated, and many (such as the elderly) don't develop a strong immunity when vaccinated. For example, in my son's kindergarten class, there's a kid who have to have a liver transplant, and hence is on immunosuppressive drugs. Having my kids vaccinated helps protect that kid's life.
You don't understand how vaccines work.
They expose the adaptive immune system to the virus/bacterium in question. The adaptive immune system develops (in a pretty much evolutionary way) a response. It's unique to every individual - no two people produce the same antibodies. Some of them are more effective than others (hence the differing strength of immunity people display after being vaccinated, and why some rare people get really lucky and develop robust immune responses even to outliers like HIV) but there's such a variety that disease organisms can't "evolve immunity" in the way you're talking about.
Some fast-mutating viruses - like the flu, or even more, the cold viruses - can change enough to require new vaccines periodically, sure. But (a) that's not 'evolving immunity to a vaccine' and (b) the old vaccine remains just as effective against the old variants.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
If your local health authority depends from a democratically elected body and is monitored by an independent body, then yeah, common sense indicates that I should trust their judgements in general terms.
This is not to say you should not be vigilant, but in general terms if you are not vigilant you are still likely to be OK (the decrease of infant mortality, longer life spans and better conditions of life later in life are proof that such optimism is not misplaced).
In other places you may have no choice: health service would be so precarious that it would not be a major concern, or you would be forcibly vaccinated to protect the fatherland.
So at the end, yeah, you as an individual have limited choice, because whatever the quality of your society you live on one and your choices don't take place in a vacuum (the day they do you are most welcome to do whatever you see fit), by limiting our choices within reasonable limits we benefit from joint action against diseases.
If everybody acts on his own, we can as well go back to the Middle Ages and wait for the next bout of the pest.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I used to expect a Slashdot poster to have either properly read or at least fairly summarize the article posted. This is the third time in a month period in which the title/summary has been misleading. It is this type of practice that assists the viral spread of the misleading headline/summary which eventually becomes the whole story for less discerning news sources. The Reuters headline itself is much more accurate "Whooping cough vaccine fades in pre-teens: study", based on the content of the article itself. The statistics seem to say (correctly) that an unvaccinated child is disproportionally more likely to be infected with whooping cough. The discovery was that the vaccine used on children did not appear to be as effective over time as the booster shot schedule expected. The length of time from the last booster shot is correlated to the an increased chance of infection, which was larger than expected in later years. The conclusion being this booster shot cycle should adjusted so booster shots occur more frequently. What would be more interesting is to discover whether it was the loss of herd immunity due to unvaccinated children which led to the outbreak. Vaccines are known to often be only effect 95-99% of the time and often fade over time requiring booster shots. As herd immunity levels decrease the chance of propagation throughout a population every time individuals are in contact increases. It possible and even likely that it was this loss of herd immunity that exposed the larger than expected "fading" in strength of the vaccine's effects, which otherwise would have remained relatively unrealized and unimportant.
This is one of those stories where there's actually something useful you can do. If you haven't gotten a Tdap booster as an adult yet, do so when you get your next Td booster. (You do get a Td booster every ten years, right? You don't want tetanus, do you? You know they used to call it "lockjaw", right? You know the bacteria that cause tetanus survive in the environment outside of living hosts, right?)
No, the vaccine worked. The reason most of the children who got infected also had the vaccines, was that 81% of all children had recieved the vaccine.
No, as I read it it's 81% of those with whooping cough who were infected. I can't see the proportion of the population who were vaccinated. It's an important point, though, and was my first thought. If 99% of the population is vaccinated, 100% of those not vaccinated get whooping cough and only 10% of those vaccinated get it then most kids with whooping cough would be fully vaccinated, by a factor of almost ten to one. Could they really have made such a basic statistical blunder, though?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen.html
http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen1.html
Still waiting for ONE rebuttal of anything Dr Hadwen said about 'vaccination'. There is no such thing, and Jenner was a fraud, as well documented by Dr Hadwen himself.
Now we get the good old "herd immunity" canard trotted out... which is obviously snake oil. Why no mention of "herd immunity" a hundred years ago?
Still waiting for somebody to show me HOW 'vaccines' are made, and WHAT they are made from... funnily enough, that information is REALLY hard to find...
It's a bacterium, we've created a strong selective pressure in the environment, perhaps it's evolving.
Of course, to evolve, it is necessary for there to be a reproducing gene pool of the existing bacterium. Thanks, non-vaccinated folks, for providing the bacterium a suitable ecological niche within which to survive the vaccine onslaught long enough to evolve resistance. Good job breaking it, heroes.
I hope you noticed that the researchers behind this study are doctors too.
Not all doctors buy into the status quo (where medication trumps diet and lifestyle, and doctors merely follow rules and guidelines instead of thinking for themselves). Remember what actually determines the status quo (political power, not independent research).
Did you know that coronary artery disease (for example) is nearly 100% attributed to diet, specifically the exponential rise in meat and dairy consumption over the past century? All doctors know that diet is a factor, but nearly all believe that medication is the answer (and hardly any could tell you that the average American today eats orders of magnitude more meat/dairy as the average American 100 years ago. But there have been very reputable studies that have shown the exact opposite of what most doctors believe -- that the answer is diet. Of course, adjusting one's diet doesn't generate any revenue for the health care industry.
It seems to me that another important data point would be the actual mortality rate vaccinated vs non-vaccinated? Or even the rate of hospitalizations per cohort (vaccinated vs non-vaccinated). Does anyone know if the study has this data? Thanks!
I thought it was bad enough there were global warming denialists running slashdot, but now antivaxxers. The people running this site should know better than to feed these trolls. What has this become? The last refuge of semi tech-literate libertarian nutjobs?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Either version can cause shingles later in life. In fact, early research is bearing out predictions that mass chicken pox vaccinations will lead to increased shingles rates.
The reason that the shingles rates are increasing is that the wild virus is not circulating (and thus not rechallenging) as previously. Without repeated exposure to the virus, immune response declines over time until the viruses lurking in the nerve roots get a chance to bloom again (just like cold sores.)
Which was what was predicted. The good news, though, is that the rates will decline again because (you can look this up) the vaccine strain does not cause the same latent infection (or not the same magnitude of latent infection) as the wild virus. Ideally a recombinant vaccine may be developed to do a better job, but I'm not complaining -- I know I have the latent infection and will cheerfully accept the half-measures as an alternative to shingles.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The article and summary are misleading in focusing on overall counts of infection rather than rates of infection, which take into account both the number of cases and the relative rates of vaccination. The better statistics to summarize from the article are the 'attack rates' (number of those who get the disease per 100,000 person-years). The article breaks these down by age and by vaccination status (Table 2, p. 23). For ages 2-7, attack rates were 359 for vaccinated and 606 for under and non-vaccinated. This difference in attack rates, though fairly large, was not large enough to reach statistical significance. For ages 8-12, attack rates were 2453 and 3211 respectively, again a non-significant difference. For ages 13-18, attack rates were 452 and 2189 -- this difference does yield a statistically significant advantage for those vaccinated Looking over all ages, attack rates were 1011 and 2073, respectively, again a statistically significant advantage for those vaccinated. The two big points are a) the large overall advantage of being vaccinated compared to being under- or non-vaccinated, and b) the age-related increase in the attack rate for those vaccinated that occurs during gaps between boosters (between 8-12). Overall, both points are strong evidence for the efficacy of the vaccine over non-vaccination. The author's articles claim in the introduction that "our unvaccinated and under-vaccinated population did not appear to contribute significantly to the increased rate of clinical pertussis" (p. 5). This seems contradicted by their data, but it is not revised or re-considered in the discussion. They may perhaps mean that given the low(ish) rate of under/non vaccination that this group had a relatively small contribution to the overall number of cases. It is clear from the attack rate analysis, however, those in this group were 4.8X more likely to develop whooping cough than those fully vaccinated (overall attack rate of 2189/100,000ppy for under/non divided by 452 for those vaccinated). The summary and headline should probably be revised. By tallying raw counts it's like saying "Honda's are most involved in accidents" which may be true in terms of raw counts due to their popularity but not true in terms of accident rates.
We are like dwarfs falling from the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more dazzling, than they did,
...can only harm its owner or his/her family. And that's only if it falls on their head, foot or other body part.
Also, competence is something easily achieved, tested and verified.
You can't unload a disease.
It's an invisible revolver someone else loads for you and makes you play Russian roulette every time you meet another human being.
And when you finally end up shooting yourself, you don't even feel it at first.
But your invisible revolver now turns into a machine gun with infinite ammo, and the game you play switches to live-action GTA.
And you're on a drive-by spree riddling everyone you meet with invisible bullets.
Which then turn into more invisible machine guns and they all join into the game.
You can be informed up to kazoo. It don't make a lick of difference.
By the time you're aware of the symptoms, you've already infected everyone you made contact with in the last couple of days. Sorry. Riddled everyone with bullets.
And you never get to be competent. Remember - can't unload it. Can't even put it down, aim it or let go of the trigger.
All you CAN do is put on some Kevlar, and get some for your family too.
Which would be the vaccine in this particular analogy.
So you mean a vaccine didn't actually prevent a disease? Hmmm. I'm not a tinfoiler that thinks vaccines are worthless. But when I was little, I got a "virus" that mimicked the symptoms of Measles quite closely. Even though I had been vaccinated for that and the doctors assured my parent's there was no way it could be the measles.
The only serious illness I've had in my life was whooping cough as a young child; I nearly died from it; and I was vaccinated against it.
My parents decided to not give me any further vaccinations; and since then I have not had any other illnesses. Now as an adult, I never get sick, and consider myself healthy. During the swine flu scare show, I watched many people get vaccinated and end up getting horrible flu-like illnesses shortly after.
Obviously here on Slashdot, most people believe everything they read, and believe in vaccines. I even had one nerdy friend swear blind that they work whilst coughing his guts up after a vaccine. I prefer to go the route that works for me, and is proven over a million or so years of human life; long before the greedy healthcare industry was born.
Why the obsession to prolong life anyway, we're all going to die eventually, and who wants to be an old demented fool in a care home.
Yes I'm posting as AC because the 'antivaxer' hate here on Slashdot is pretty rampant. If you had a long standing history of terrible side effects from vaccination for both yourself, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, parents. What would you do? The cause and effect is pretty clear. Totally healthy, get a vaccine, and in a few hours a reaction so horrific it results in emergency room visits. Grand Mal seizures, dangerously high fevers, brain swelling, dizziness and nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, lethargy, difficulty breathing. And yet, no scientific evidence that it was the vaccine that caused anything of course. The establishment says, oh it's nothing, they'll be fine in a few hours. So putting aside the fact that you know vaccines can save lives and prevent diseases. If your experience is that people who share your genetics come pretty close to dying whenever specific vaccines are introduced into their bodies, what choice do you then make for your children who are counting on you to protect them and help them.
As an infant, I "died" at least three times due to vaccine related complications (Asperated in the middle of a Grand Mal seizure every time usually as a result of whatever sedatives they were trying to give me to break the seize because I would not come out of it (Believe me they tried waiting me out). Do you think it says ANYTHING in my medical records about that? No. It says I was vaccinated at my pediatricians office, and that I was brought to the hospital a few hours later for an unrelated incident.
Frankly, the CHANCE of dying from a communicable disease is a chance I'm willing to take considering the alternative. I know I'm an outlier. I'm so far beyond the bell curve it's not even funny. But can you imagine the frustration of trying to go through these conversations with pediatricians who think they know better than you? School administrators? All the while most of them are looking at you like you just arrived from Mars and are quite certifiably insane.
The responses and moderation here convince me /. is a poor forum for medical and biological matters--news that isn't for nerds.
Then WHAT THE FUCK is the definition of a vaccine? For us guys who grew up in the 50s and 60s a vaccine KEPT YOU FROM GETTING THE DISEASE!!! AND YOU DIDN"T NEED TO VACCINATE EVERYONE!!!
If you actually read the article linked, it brings a totally diffenent view to this. The whole point of the study was that they were surprised that kids who were immunized got sick. The number of these was greatest at the age right before a booster shot was recommended, after which the rate dropped off again.
Basically the point was that the vaccine doesn't stay effective as long as previously thought, resulting in children thought to be immunized in having a higher risk of contracting whooping cough. So basically we need more vaccinations or a booster at an earlier age than is recommended right now.
Another interesting thought is what effect did unvaccinated children have in spreading the disease in the first place.
I think most of the pro vaccine posters here have missed the point.
1) The vaccine doesn't work as advertised for length of protection.
2) The vaccine batches were defective.
3) The source has mutated.
This is also similar to a recent measles outbreak in which a similar majority (I think it was 85%) who got measles were fully up to date on their shots. This whole argument about herd immunity is pointless if # 1 or 3 are the case. My money is on # 1 because most vaccines don't last. The seasonal flu was the exact same 2 years in a row but the CDC still recommended getting the same shot 2 years in a row.
My biggest fear is that we are doing with vaccines what we have done with antibiotics. Screwing up a great medical tool by over using it. The reason that the large pharma companies want to vaccinate all things now is that once on the approved list they can't be sued. Given that they've lost $15 billion in settlements and fines over the last dozen years they now want to vaccinate for all sorts of things.
I think the medical profession needs to clean up its act on the vaccine front to get people to take them. First just quit lying about the ones that don't work well and stop promoting them (stuff like the seasonal flu shots). Read the abstracts and reviews from cochrane.org about this some time:
- Cochrane Review - Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults
Second is to get rid of the adjuvants like mercury and alumina. They can but it is cheaper and more profitable to keep doing those. Dumb. Take away the excuses and address the real issues. Some serious double blind research needs to be done and don't tell me that it is unethical because the pharma industry has less ethics than the politicians they own.
Sorry, I wrote that the swine flu vaccine caused autism, which was wrong. It caused narcolepsy.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Within days of receiving this vaccine, my 6th grader developed a nasty cough that lasted for weeks. He's generally very healthy otherwise, and he never had an adverse reaction to a vaccine prior to that one. I think this is a bad vaccine.
The article does say that between 8 and 12 the vaccine only protected 24% of the time, compared to about 50% for all kids. So at 245 cases per 10,000 with full vaccinations, you would expect around 325 cases without. Of course in a school with 10,000 kids, those extra 80 cases may cause even more cases.
I think the /. Editors need to start reading the effing article and producing clearer summaries. The current summary could easily lead someone to assume you were more likely to catch the disease if you got the vaccine.